In the manufacture of appliances, various elements and skins of the appliance itself, particularly a major appliance, are hung from a frame which is generally formed by a piece of sheet metal bent normally into a substantially U-shaped configuration. One arm of the U forms the front, the second arm of the U, a shorter arm forms the rear and a bridging member between the two arms, forms the base or bottom of the unit.
With such a conventional frame, the current practice requires a special bending tool or jig to form the frame into the U-shaped configuration somewhere along the assembly line so that the U-shaped frame then may be utilized to build up the appliance. Obviously the requirement for a bending press to bend the frame into the necessary configuration is relatively costly and requires means to transfer the bent or formed frame from the bending means to the assembly line and further handling.